We opened to a picture of Rhada half concealed in the papyri, gazing on the inconstant Heri as he sports with the laughing shepherdesses. The sad, wounded look spread over the chiselled features told of the jealousy within her heart, and shaded the radiance of Heaven with the blight of Earth’s sorrow.
“Isn’t that face exquisite?” she said, after gazing for some time at it without speaking; “and the hand half raised, holding the broken stem of lotus, how perfect in outline. The whole picture is the loveliest thing I ever saw.”
“You haven’t had the advantage of a mirror recently, then,” I said, tamely.
“That is fulsome and exceedingly stale,” she said, with a smile that softened but did not quite destroy the sarcasm of her tone.
“Indeed, Miss Carrover, you are lovely enough to make Heraclitus cease weeping; but I would not seek your favor with adulation. Your experience as a flirt has doubtless taught you too well how to estimate the compliments of—er (I longed for my horse and spur again, but not having them with me I was forced to its utterance)—lovers.”
“Do you call me a flirt,” she said, closing the book, and setting it up edgewise on her lap, so that she might lock her beautiful fingers over it, “after all the consideration and regard I have shown you? Has anything in my conduct toward _you_ indicated that I was flirting with you?”
“No; I confess with deep gratitude that, so far as I am concerned, you do not yet deserve the name. But I do fear your ridicule and sarcasm, or my bursting heart would tell its love.”
“Poor little heart! do not burst,” she said, patting me with one hand gently over my heart.
Of course I caught the hand and imprinted a very fervent kiss on it; a liberty which she resented by calling “Sir-r-r,” with a great many r’s, and vowing she would not speak to me again while we were in the library. I gazed at her a moment, and then broke out passionately:
“Miss Lillian—may I call you that?—let’s cease trifling. I love you; but before you laugh me to scorn let me tell you how I love you. I have never loved before, can never love again, as I love you now. My life, my soul is wrapped up in you; my whole being is in yours; and existence without your love to possess or to hope for is utterly worthless. No other thought, no other object has been mine since I saw you; and I solemnly vow to you now, I care for, hope for nothing else on earth but your smile and favor. I cannot, dare not believe that you love me now; but give me one ray of hope, one straw to cling to; promise that you will learn to love me in years to come; that after long, patient devotion on my part, and satiety of conquest on yours, you will give me your heart. Dearest Lillian, promise me.”